Thursday, March 28

The Prosecutor’s Office asks the Constitutional Court to recognize a three-year wait for a trial as a violation of rights


The Prosecutor’s Office of the Constitutional Court (TC) maintains that the fundamental right to a judicial process without undue delay has been violated by a man who was going to have to wait until 2024 for a labor lawsuit against the University of Seville for not hiring him once he obtained the doctor’s degree, although the court finally found a gap and it will be held in December of this year.

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The prosecutor Fernando Cabedo has reported in favor of partially estimating the appeal filed by the plaintiff before the TC and declaring that his fundamental right has been violated, as stated in a letter dated July 12 to which Europa Press has had access.

“The plaintiff’s conduct does not deserve any reproach, given that, in addition to not having caused the delay in question, he has denounced the violation of the fundamental right,” says the prosecutor, who adds to his reasoning the fact that the plaintiff appealed the first court refusals to change the trial date.

In May, the Second Section of the First Chamber of the TC admitted the appeal for processing and justified it by the “special constitutional importance” of the fundamental right that the lawyer Daniel Sánchez Bernal, who represents the appellant, considers violated.

“Late Justice is not Justice,” argued the Sevillian lawyer in the amparo appeal he filed in December of last year before the court of guarantees, which has to decide whether to estimate it or not.

For the prosecutor, it is convenient to partially estimate this resource “since it was a simple procedure, that the appointment for the act of conciliation and oral trial was made for three and a half years after the filing of the lawsuit” and “that the attitude of the The plaintiff has not hindered the process in any way”, but rather his attitude in the process “has been very diligent”. Thus, he points out that the cause of the delay is “structural” in those courts.

However, the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office considers that there is no violation of the right to effective judicial protection of the applicant for amparo with regard to a violation of the right to sufficient motivation and based on the decree that set the trial date. , although he considers it “true” that the reasons for such a delay were conspicuous by their absence in that document.

“In any case, that initial lack of justification for the delay was rectified both in the second decree, which already justifies the reason for the late signaling,” and in successive ones. “In summary, excessive workload for the existing material and human resources, estimating that the time dedicated to each process cannot be reduced, due to the need to respect the right of defense of the parties and the right that the resolutions have a sufficient motivation and founded in Law”, indicates the prosecutor in his brief.

The events date back to June 2021, when the lawyer filed a labor lawsuit before the Social Court Number 11 of Seville in which he claimed compensation for damages for his client from the university of the Andalusian capital for “breach of the formalization of the postdoctoral contract”.

The lawsuit was admitted by the court, which in a decree of July 13 indicated to the lawyer that the conciliation act and the trial, in case the parties did not reach an agreement, were set for November 7, 2024, that is, more than three years later.

The appeal draws attention to the fact that this date means waiting “more than three years”, which –argues the plaintiff’s lawyer– violates the fundamental right to effective judicial protection and, specifically, to a process without undue delays.

In addition, he underlines that in the workplace this delay is a particular detriment because it usually leads to “many defendants resigning themselves to resorting to judicial assistance to defend their legitimate claims.” “In many cases, these are workers who have not even received the minimum legal compensation,” he highlights.

In the specific case of Seville, the lawyer explains to the TC, “the situation is aggravated because trials are already being indicated for” the year 2026, which he considers “a real aberration, a flagrant violation of the right to effective judicial protection” .

Sánchez Bernal emphasized in his appeal the “undeniable structural shortcomings that arise with the increase in the number of cases, the lack of personal and material resources, as well as the high workload”, in part caused by the pandemic.



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